Buying Better Magnets for the Hobby Desk
Sometimes the small hobby upgrades matter the most
We recently had one of those very practical hobby conversations that starts with “hey, I’m placing an order” and quickly turns into a useful tip for everyone who builds Warhammer armies.
This time it was about magnets.
Michał was putting together an order from a wholesale supplier after being disappointed with magnets bought from Temu. The main target was the very common 5x2 mm magnets, the kind we usually use under bases for transport trays and storage. At that supplier, they came out to 17 groszy per piece from 180 units, and 16 groszy per piece above 600, plus shipping.
That put them in a pretty interesting spot price-wise: more expensive than Temu, but still much cheaper than buying from some hobby retailers. More importantly, the key point for us was not just price, but trust in the source. Michał mentioned that, from reliable information he has, this is the same kind of wholesale source used by model shops in Poland.
What size for what?
The conversation quickly moved from “who wants in?” to the classic question:
what size magnets do we actually need?
For 5x2 mm, the answer was straightforward — these were meant for putting one magnet under the base.
That is probably the most common and least intimidating way to start magnetising models. If you are new to the topic, this is a great entry point:
- glue a magnet under the base,
- use a metal transport box, tray, or shelf,
- and suddenly your army is much safer during travel.
Then came the next obvious question: what about arms and weapons?
Here we didn’t pretend to be universal experts. Michał openly said that for weapon options and arm swaps it is better to ask people with more hands-on experience in that specific area. Still, the plan was simple enough: if smaller magnets were needed, they could be added to the same order without any problem.
After a bit of checking, Ender came back with the most practical summary of the whole exchange:
- 2x1 mm or
- 3x1 mm
seem to be the internet-approved sizes for arms, depending on the size of the part.
That sounds about right to us as a general starting point. Bigger joins can often take a 3x1 mm, while smaller wrists, arms, or lighter weapon options may work better with 2x1 mm.
A very relatable hobby moment
We also had a wonderfully relatable line in the middle of the discussion: the part where someone says they want magnets for all their models plus some запас… but first they need to actually figure out how many that means.
Honestly, that is exactly how hobby planning often works.
You start with:
- “I’ll just get a few.”
And five minutes later you are at:
- “Actually, I should probably magnetise everything.”
In the end, Ender settled on a very sensible mixed order:
- 100x 5x2 mm
- 100x 2x1 mm
- 100x 3x1 mm
for a total of 300 magnets.
That feels like a nice hobby starter pack if you want to cover both base magnetising and your first experiments with weapon or arm swaps.
Our takeaway
The biggest lesson from this little exchange is simple:
cheap magnets are not always good magnets
It is tempting to go for the absolute lowest price, especially when you need a lot of them, but if the quality is disappointing, then even a “bargain” starts feeling expensive. For hobby supplies like magnets, where reliability actually matters, paying a bit more for something proven can save a lot of frustration.
If you are magnetising mainly for transport, 5x2 mm under bases sounds like a safe and practical standard. If you want to start experimenting with interchangeable bits, 2x1 mm and 3x1 mm are good sizes to look into.
And maybe the most important hobby tip of all: if someone in your group is placing a bigger order, it is often worth joining in.
Shared shipping, tested source, less guesswork — that is the kind of hobby logistics we can get behind.
If we do a bigger magnetising session off the back of this order, we will definitely come back with practical results from the workbench.